Tunica/Katrina

[InkyWretch]

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My boss went this weekend and said all the check-in lines were huge on Sunday.

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There are refugees all over Tunica, Memphis and Little Rock. We're talking about 500,000 Gulf Coasters who fled this storm.

It'll be years before the Gulf Coast recovers from this thing.

[MicroBob]

I was a BJ dealer at one of the Tunica casinos for 8 months and am not really sure where or how it actually was touching the Mississippi River.

As for the Horseshoe and Gold Strike...I think that perhaps one brick of their property is actually touching the Mississippi.

It is correct that when you go there you will likely NEVER realize that there is any water ANYWHERE around.
You can see it if you have a hotel room on a higher floor at the Gold strike though.

[Randy_Refeld]

I believe they dig a trench. FLoat the barge in from the Mississippi and then fill in the trench. The barge is therefore on Miss river water.

[MicroBob]

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I was planning on going up there this wknd, but doubt that is possible now with this mess.

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they MIGHT be open again by then.
not sure of the damage they took.
but there is also a pretty good chance that most of the roads to get in or out will still be blocked by flooding and fallen trees.

could easily take a couple weeks just to make it more easily travellable again. this was pretty much what happened in the Florida panhandle during Ivan.
One road in finally opened a week later...but others were still closed down.
My Dad and sister (who live in Destin, Fla. kind of near Pensacola) were stuck just hanging out in Texas waiting for the roads to be in good enough shape to return.


Anyway - I wouldn't bother with Biloxi just because it MIGHT be a real pain regardless.
You could try Tunica instead of course (depending on where you're coming from).

[tylerdurden]

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I believe they dig a trench. FLoat the barge in from the Mississippi and then fill in the trench. The barge is therefore on Miss river water.

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This is correct. The barges can be "detached" from the main buildings on land and floated down the river, in theory at least - some of them have very seamless-looking construction and would require quite a bit of effort to detach from the land-based structures.

I'm not sure exactly how filled-in the trenches can be, but the barges definitely can be relocated down the river. Several of the original Tunica casinos at Mhoon Landing (President and Lady Luck IIRC) were moved downriver as well as the Tresure Bay, which is now on the Gulf.

[InkyWretch]

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I was planning on going up there this wknd, but doubt that is possible now with this mess.

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they MIGHT be open again by then.
not sure of the damage they took.

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The casinos might not have power by the weekend, let alone be repaired and open for business.

The entire town of Biloxi is a disaster area.

[MicroBob]

yeah. this would be my guess as well..that casinos in Biloxi might not even have power yet by the weekend (I am assuming they already don't have power currently).

Even if/when they get power...they got some flooding issues inside the casinos to take care of as well. my guess is that the casinos will be closed for awhile.


As I mentioned before...depending on where you are coming from...there's always tunica (which is supposed to have better poker anyway).
Lots of people come to Tunica from the Carolinas and Alabama, etc.

[MicroBob]

TV news-story out of Memphis says that many Memphis and Tunica hotels are sold-out with the evacuees.
Showed some people with portable TV's camping-out in their cars in the hotel parking lot because they couldn't get a room.

It was also announced that Mississippi gulf-coast residents should stay away for a week or more...otherwise they will be returning to a waste-land with no electricity or drinking water but with plenty of snakes and fire-ants.

I suspect that Tunica casinos will remain pretty busy for the next several days.
getting your own room might not be so easy though.

[wray]

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In Tunica, the casinos are technically on a barge (I think that's the term). But you could be there and never notice that there is water anywhere around - they are just like regular casino/hotel buildings. The Gold Strike there is a 30 story hotel for example.

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The way I understand it is the gaming space is on a barge. Everything else can be where they want it.

[youtalkfunny]

Go to Google maps, find the casinos in Tunica, and look at the satellite photos. They're NEAR the river, anyway.

I once drove completely around Sam's Town, so it's not connected to the river via waterway.

I think Fitzgeralds might be the only hotel from which you can SEE the river.